UNITED STATES
Female guard ban stands
A military judge on Thursday refused to lift an order barring female guards at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base from having physical contact with five men charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, at least for now. Army Colonel James Pohl denied a request by prosecutors to lift a temporary order he imposed in January. Their request followed three days of testimony by Guantanamo Bay detention center officials who said the rule interfered with prison operations and discriminated against female soldiers. Pohl is expected to take up the matter again following additional testimony at a hearing early next year. The defendants say being moved from their high-security prison to court on the US base in Cuba by guard escort teams that include women is an affront to their Muslim beliefs.
UNITED STATES
Shkreli buys Wu-Tang album
Martin Shkreli has been called the most hated man in the US and the pharmaceutical tycoon’s reputation looks set to get worse after he bought the vaunted secret Wu-Tang Clan album. The New York rap collective revealed last year that it had recorded only one copy of a 31-track double-album entitled Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, kept in a vault with a leather-bound 174-page lyric book waiting for a buyer. Bloomberg BusinessWeek on Thursday revealed that Shkreli had bought the album for US$2 million. The 32-year-old executive immediately teased Wu-Tang Clan fans, writing on Twitter that he “may play something special.” The agreement forbade Shkreli from reselling the album, but gave him the right to stream it for free online.
CHINA
Firefighters delay flights
When crew members of a passenger airplane reported sparks coming from an engine while taxiing at an airport in southern China, eight fire trucks responded within minutes. Then they covered the wrong airplane with white foam. The mistake at Fuzhou Changle International Airport on Thursday was quickly amended and the firefighters turned their attention to the correct airplane, but the other one — with passengers aboard — was delayed 10 hours and the entire incident delayed 30 flights, the airport said in a statement. The Air China flight had reported the problems in a right-side engine of a Boeing 737-800 for a flight headed to Beijing. By the time firefighters arrived four minutes later, engines were switched off. However, a Fuzhou Airlines airplane of the same make was emitting exhaust fumes. The firefighters sprayed the Fuzhou Airlines airplane with foam until the airport’s control center alerted them to the mistake, and then they sprayed the right airplane, the airport said.
SOUTH KOREA
Group using drones in North
A group says it has started using drones to smuggle banned information into North Korea. North Korean defector Jung Gwang-il said his organization, No Chain, began the deliveries in April. Human rights groups say this is the first time they have heard of drones being used. Jung on Thursday spoke to reporters before attending a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea’s human rights situation, which has been called the worst in the world. North Korea severely restricts the flow of information in and out of the country. Activists use various ways, including balloons, to smuggle in items such as flash drives and mobile phones. Jung told reporters that the deliveries are launched from China and now carry about 2,000 “storage devices” into North Korea every month.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in